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How I flight hacked a Free flight to Iceland (and earned cash back)

Earlier this year I visited Iceland for the first time (and fell in love – here’s why)! It was an epic mix between a cityscape in Reykjavik and a solo winter roadtrip in the countryside. To be completely honest, the ‘icing on the cake’ so to speak was getting my flight over for FREE, plus even earning a little bit back! So how did I do it? I flight hacked!

How I flight hacked a FREE flight to Iceland:

I took advantage of a seat sale Wow Air was having at the time, and was able to use yet another credit card hack

Step #1: Find a Seat Sale

I prefer Skyscanner’s search engine because it allows you to search for airfare by MONTH to view the cheapest prices across time if your travel dates are flexible.

In my case, I searched Toronto –> Iceland for the entire month of February and then I was able to identify which dates had the lowest fares. Sometimes it can work out cheaper to buy two individual one-way flights this way instead of return airfare so I would recommend trying both!

Since I found a super cheap single fare, I booked them separately. There were return fares from as little as $80 CAD at the time and as high as $180.

For the purpose of this post, I will just show you how I got the single one way ticket for free.

HOWEVER, Wow Air only accepts Visa or Mastercard on their website so I opted to pay with my Mastercard Cashback.

Note: I am only suggesting to use a credit card if you can pay off the balance each month; the whole point of using credit cards for cash back or travel rewards is to reap the benefits, not get charged ridiculous interest rates.

Step #3: Reimburse Card Charge with Cash Back Balance

Once I purchased the flight on the cash back credit card, I requested the cash back balance to be applied to the card to pay the balance.

The math:Flight from Toronto to Reykjavik total was $119.99 – cash back balance of $141.56 = + $21.56.

Essentially, I flight hacked the one way flight for free and came out on top with an additional $21.56 credit applied to the card for future purchases!

Do you use credit card rewards for travel? Let me know in the comments below!